A Sandwich a Day: Hot Fish from Bolton's in Nashville

In this great country of ours, one could eat a different sandwich every day of the year—so that's what we'll do. Here's A Sandwich a Day, our daily look at sandwiches around the country. Got a sandwich we should check out? Let us know.—The Mgmt.

Bolton's is a tiny hand-painted shack with room inside for maybe 12 people and a crazy ordering system where you knock on a pink door and the cook's face appears in a small sliding window along the wall. When my food was ready, the window opened again and out came this massive double-filet of whiting on white bread, fried in a way that only seems possible south of Maryland, uber crisp yet still tender and delicious inside.

You can actually sort of pick this thing up, at least for the first few bites. After that just rip off chunks of hot sauce and yellow-mustard dripping fish and pickle. This was so good, I'm probably completely ruined for any other fish sandwich in the world.

The Hot Chicken was just as good. We ordered a "mild," which was still blazing hot but actually edible. If you've never had Hot Chicken it's definitely not just a bigger version of buffalo wings (sort of what I was expecting). It's the best fried chicken you've ever had smeared with a hot pepper and lard paste that soaks into the breading and anything else it gets close to. Some of the best fried chicken I've had in recent memory.